How many wrecks in the uncharted depths? Century after century of shipwrecks, seaweed shrouded and armoured in barnacles, iron ribbed rusted skeletons of the vessels they were.

Sea born we are by that life giving ocean that can swallow men whole, drowning in storms, when dark clouds are broiling.

Lost sailors bones rest on the bottom at a depth that is deeper than the height of the highest of mountains ~ fish eat their flesh, their bones a part of the sea ~ they rest there from war, work, exploration ~ they rest there now in water rocked graves where no sunlight, starlight nor moonlight can ever reach in the ebb and the flow and the sway of deep tides.

 

stars hidden in cloud

winds howl darkness, no mercy

a wave wall, a void

 

sea throat swallows, whole,

spinning, deep to sea grave,

sand grains their worn bones

 

wind drop, empty light,

nothing there on the surface

tranquil cloud mirror glass

 

 

(the title Twenty Four Shipwrecks refers to a figure I saw online when reading about Trawler Fishing in Britain – twenty-four was stated as the number of trawlers lost each year)